Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Terence McKenna Quotes

Terence McKenna was a multi-disciplinary commentator on the exploration of Humanity and our particular place in the Universe.

An advocate for the use of Shamanic technologies and the wisdom that the psychedelic plants share with those that interact with them, he brought fresh and novel insight to many aspects of reality- with humour and good nature.

"Animals are something invented by plants to move seeds around. An extremely yang solution to a peculiar problem which they faced."

“The apocalypse is not something which is coming. The apocalypse has arrived in major portions of the planet and it's only because we live within a bubble of incredible privilege and social insulation that we still have the luxury of anticipating the apocalypse. If you go to Bosnia or Somalia or Peru or much of the third-world then it appears that the apocalypse has already arrived."

“Ego is a structure that is erected by a neurotic individual who is a member of a neurotic culture against the facts of the matter. And culture, which we put on like an overcoat, is the collectivized consensus about what sort of neurotic behaviors are acceptable."

“We are so much the victims of abstraction that with the Earth in flames we can barely rouse ourselves to wander across the room and look at the thermostat."

"If the words 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' don't include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn't worth the hemp it was written on."

"Right here and now, one quanta away, there is raging a universe of active intelligence that is transhuman, hyperdimensional, and extremely alien."

"I think People are in love with the journey. People love seeking answers. But if you were to suggest to them that the time of seeking is over and that the chore is now to face the answer, now that's more of a challenge!"

"We have to recognise that the world is not something sculptured and finished, which we as perceivers walk through like patrons in a museum; the world is something we make through the act of perception."